Category Archives: Check it Out!

Title graphic supplies: The Daily Digi member exclusive kit My Life At Home; font is Courier

In the April 2012 edition of The Digi Files, designer Krystal Hartley included a kit with an awesome wooden paper, which I used on one of my layouts:

I hadn’t experimented with wooden paper backgrounds very much before but I love the look when I see pages featuring them in the galleries. Realistic wooden backgrounds are a great complement to digital elements and the faux-wood doodled backgrounds are a fun choice for lively layouts.

I found some stunning examples in the galleries of these wooden papers in action:

Enjoy by editorialdragon

The paint splattered on the wood and the sort of haphazard cluster of papers and elements make this page look casual and almost accidental, even though it is artfully arranged.

Ahh by mrs_jb

Doodled wooden paper backgrounds are a fresh and fun take on the wooden page trend. I love how the wood lines add a sense of movement and fun to this adorable page.

Sweet Sadie by celeste

It looks like celeste could have placed her notebook (with the cute dog photo) and set it on the ground and taken a photo of it. This page has such a great realistic feel to it.

Puddle Jumper by ashleywb

I love how the wooden background here is so subtle, allowing the papers and words to be the stars.

Spent Many Happy Hours by chocochoco

The wooden paper background is here, but it is mostly covered. It makes the perfect neutral background for this elaborately layered design. Stunning!

Life Is Like a Rodeo by editorialdragon

Isn’t this one cool? I love how the industrial staples really look like they could be going into the wood below.

All of the layouts above are linked to their credits.

There are many, many kits available in digi stores that have one or two wooden paper backgrounds included. Here are a few products that are focused on these papers:

I hope that you found some inspiration for using wooden paper backgrounds! Is this a trend that you’ve tried? We’d love if you’d share a link to your pages as additional inspiration for readers. This is such a fun trend!

I love the look of alphas on a layout, but placing them can be time consuming and monotonous! I have a secret weapon for placing alphas that has changed my scrapping life! It’s the Title Builder Scripts by Anna Forrest (for PSE and PSCS).

These scripts work similarly to actions. You install them differently (Anna includes instructions), and run them from a different menu, but once you select them, they do their thing (see the video below). Actions can only include menu commands in Photoshop, Scripts can actually include more. I can’t imagine the brain power needed to make these babies work!

Once the script is installed, I go to Edit> Scripts> AFD Title Builder:

The following dialogue box opens up:

I type the word in the title box, navigate to the folder that contains the alpha in the Image Folder box. Then, in the lowercase box, I just deleted the a so only the part of the file name visible is the filename that will be the exact same on each letter. If I would have used capitals and or numbers, I would have changed those as well. Then, I clicked OK and the script did it’s thing. Watch the video below to see the script in action.

Here are a few layouts I’ve used this script on:

Supplies by SaraJ, template by Little Green Frog and Michelle Batton, font is Printing Primer by Fontologie

Supplies by Chelle’s Creations, font is Printing Primer by Fontologie

Supplies by Zoe Pearn

Supplies by Sahlin Studio, font by Fontologie

If you have an alpha aversion, give these scripts a try and you will be using alphas on every layout from here on out (I’m not kidding)!

As a customer, I am constantly amazed by the creativity and inventiveness of digital scrapbook designers. There are products available now that I would never have dreamed of when I first started digi scrapping in 2006.

One product that I have been enjoying are the cluster and paper stack templates. For some reason, I’m finding it hard to describe them, but I’ll give it a try: they are layered templates where the designer provides the layers for the cluster or paper stack but it is not a “complete” layout on its own. So, the templates are a good starting point for a layout and allow each scrapper to creatively “fill in the page”.

Samples of Cluster and Paper Stack Templates

A “picture is worth a thousand words” so here is a sampling of the cluster and paper stack templates that I found in stores:

Products In Action

The reason I like these templates is that they let me quickly start a page while at the same time giving me enough room to put my own creative touch on the page.

Here’s one paper stack product and a page I made with it:

I used a paper cluster template by Chelle’s Creations (shown above) as a starting point for the layout. I loved that I was able to quickly drop the paper strips onto my page and start clipping papers. I resized some paper strips and removed some layers – they’re very versatile tools.

Here’s another sample:

For the page above, I started with a paper stacker template by ad77 designs and then added photos and other embellishments to suit the photos. It came together very quickly.

I used ad77 design’s paper stack template again for the following page, where I combined it with a white-space style template by Zinnias and Swallowtails.

I think there is a place in my digi supplies for both full templates and cluster and paper stack templates. They are excellent page starters for when I need a little help with capturing my family stories.

Have a great weekend!

PS #1 – All the product previews and layouts in this post are linked to sources/credits.

PS #2 – The title graphic was made using products from The Daily Digi member exclusive kit My Life In Print and fonts 4990810 and Jonny Quest Classic.

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to join almost 100 digital scrapbookers in Vegas for Digiscrapapalooza! Among those there were a lot of members, readers, and listeners to The Digi Show. I was also fortunate to meet our team members (from L to R above) Jenn Lindsey, Katrina Kennedy, and Trina (I’m in the solid black). It was so fun to spend time visiting with my team members about digital scrapbooking, photography, and real life stuff!

I was joined by my real life, digi scrapping friend, Alicia and can you believe, I don’t have any photos of us together!?

I got photos taken with lots of readers and listeners (I’m still hoping they will send me copies…pretty please). One of our readers, members, and listeners was quickly loved by all. Joyce is hilarious and had me laughing so hard, that not only did my mouth hurt, but my whole head! It was a joy to meet and visit with her.

Joyce and Alicia

I took Katrina’s photography class and finally, finally moved my camera to manual mode! Woot!

We recorded a live Digi Show my last night there. It was a fun show, filled with lots of questions for designers and business owners. I felt a bit frazzled taping the show live, especially with that many panelists. Liz Moss was on the green team with me (a big thanks to Chelle for all of her work on our team stuff) and so I accidentally introduced Liz Albers (Scrapping with Liz) as Liz Moss (sigh).

It was a super fun time and I am so glad I was able to go. A big THANKS to Kami, Mel, and the Scrap Orchard crew for going above and beyond. Also, thanks to Chelle and the rest of the GREEN TEAM! It really is fun to put faces and voices with all of the names!

Yesterday, I sent an email to members that the Playbook is now available in iBooks format! I’m really excited about this addition to our lineup for members. The iBooks Playbook can be downloaded directly in the members area from your iPad and will open directly in iBooks.

We are also working on a Kindle Fire and Nook Color versions.

Last week, I shared some tips with our members on getting around the site. These were things that our members had asked for in a recent members survey, but are already features on the site. I figured if our members don’t know about them, then our readers might not either. So, I thought I would share them here too.

First up, I’ve had several requests for an easy way to access the designers features at the end of the month. This will help you be able to get to those designers’ coupons you all love!

If you go to the home page and click on “designers” that will take you to a page that has previews for all of the items included in The Digi Files. They are added as they are revealed on the home page. They link back to the original designers’ features with those coupons at the end.

Another member mentioned that they wish there was a way to see all of the designers that had contributed to The Digi Files in the past. They have come to trust our recommendations and are overwhelmed by the amount of designers to choose from. If you go to the home page and click on “Past Designers” in the side bar, you will find a list of all of the designers that have contributed by the month they were featured (most recent on top). The list is linked to their stores and we try to keep it as up-to-date as possible, but with over 170 different designers, it isn’t always perfect!

Someone said they would love a way to pull up all of Katrina’s photography posts. To pull up all of the posts by any author, just click on their name under the post title. I had my programmer set it up so the author names/links come through your reader as well.

We also have all of the posts categorized. All of Katrina’s Photography posts can be found in the photography category. There are a few posts by other authors in that category as well.

From the home screen, if you click on “tutorials” you will find a lot of different topics of posts, tutorials, resources, and information:

One more way you can find past posts, resources, and information is our search tool. We actually have paid for Google to run our little search bar so we can provide you with the best results possible and it does a pretty good job:

Don’t be afraid to click around the site and see what you can find. You just might be surprised what you discover!

The following layouts were created using “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” by Stolen Moments Designs and included in The Digi Files during February, 2012:

Layout by Yolanda

Layout by Amanda

Layout by Cheryl

Layout by Debby

Layout by Leeandra

Layout by Marlen

Layout by Mimontiero

Layout by Patti

Layout by Tanya

Layout by Karen. Supplies: Let Me Call You Sweetheart by Stolen Moments; Fonts: .

Layout by Jenn. Supplies: Let Me Call You Sweetheart by Stolen Moments; Fonts: DJB DigiKim.

Layout by Anne. Supplies: Let Me Call You Sweetheart by Stolen Moments; Fonts: Noteworthy.

Layout by Lauren. Supplies: Let Me Call You Sweetheart by Stolen Moments.

Layout by SharonS

The following layouts were created using “Your Song” which is included in The Digi Files and Digi Game during January 2012:

Layout by Anne

Layout by ildikó Kovács

Layout by Sharon Dale

Layout by Lauren. Supplies: Your Song by Paula Kesselring; Doodles by Lauren.

Layout by Jacki. Supplies: Your Song by Paula Kesselring; Concert Alpha by Traci Reed; Manger by Wetfish Designs.

Layout by Amelia. Supplies: Your Song by Paula Kesselring; Holiday Templates No. 002 by Simply Tiffany; Font: VT Portable Remington.

Layout by Jenn. Supplies: Your Song by Paula Kesselring; Fonts: Small Typewriting Medium.

Layout by SharonS, additional supplies: Template: Simply.Scraps, Font: CK Extra